FOURTH

Indeed, the top of Canterbury. Usually, the album most praised by many is precisely the "third", but contrary to this frequent opinion, I have to disagree, considering this particular record the best in the entire discography of the band (at least during its free jazz experiments of the Wyatt-Ratledge era), and, in accordance with my great love for the band, the pinnacle, the culmination of all Canterbury Rock. First of all, because this album is extremely balanced, and, of course, less experimental than the previous two works, which contributed to the fact that in the end, by 1971, the band became a benchmark in its genre. Unlike, for example, "the third", I find this album less stretched in duration, and, accordingly, more "dry", more material-rich. In it you will not find such avant-garde revelations as, for example, from the organ introduction on Facelift. To a lesser extent, this album will be a dissonantly sharp improvisation on 7/8 as in Ester Nose Job, and in general it is not so experimental. But here it will be important to note that precisely because the group stopped going into life experiments, this work therefore came out so - very high-quality, without noise and excesses - a kind of diamond. Speaking in detail about the compositions, the album opens with one of the leading numbers of the album - "teeth" - which immediately sets the tone for the record with its initial contrabass intro. Next comes the general interaction of the collective, built on a dense groove of percussion and rich polyrhythmic threads of rhythms. Improvises a violently roaring saxophone. He creates his phrases under the general instrumental hum, and the resulting sound is saturated with both beauty and energy. The band is already setting the bar on this track. Following the compositional pattern of "fast/slow", on the second track - "kings and queens", the band takes a more "Andante-", in musical terms, tempos and in an uncomplicated 3/4 measure, it seems to build its material from a simple ostinate Hopper riff - a simple but memorable octave motif that is so characteristic of it. The composition itself is moderate in nature, and allows the listener to relax a little after the "tooth-crushing". Perhaps this number will even seem boring to someone, but I think it is very indicative for the group - moving away from rigidity and assertiveness, here it explores another side, a different mood of its genre, giving birth, in fact, to a gloomy and slightly "closed" thing. Here you can clearly hear the abundance of additional wind instruments, with which, in the person of cornetist Mike Charig and trombonist Nick Evans (if these names seemed familiar to you, but you can't remember where they came from, then I will note that these two, as well as the saxophonist of the band - Elton Dean - played in the sextet of pianist Keith Tippett), with whom the band experimented a lot at that time. "Fletcher Blemish" is probably the most radical track of the album. Frightening with its unrelated atonal and chromatic passages, the lack of a clear rhythmic section, indeed, this spot, drawn with bold and very dense strokes from instrumental parts, seems to look back a couple of years and can become a worthy competitor to the "facelift" or some particularly avant-garde numbers from "volume two". The work is really frightening - a kind of jazz musical expressionism inspired (conditionally) by some Schoenberg or Berg. "Virtually" is a four-part twenty-minute suite, the authorship of which, I believe, belongs to the whole group. This is an excellent example of a compositional improvisational material that is good in size, divided into many small subsections. Here you will find unison saxophone/organ solos, and a blurred electric piano with a long distance to ambient. And the rebellious rhythms of the skillful Wyatt game, and again the complicated Hopper parts. And in general, "Virtually" is a very substantial thing, which, despite the predominance of gray, minor shades in it, will definitely not let you get bored. I give the album a strong five, justifiably forbidding it to be the best album of the band and, as I said, representing it - one of the best albums of Canterbury. This is a very mature work, recorded in the best composition for the group - stronger than the already brilliant "third". Perhaps, and I won't hide it, the reason lies in my so strong love for the band, but in my three-part review I tried to point out the merits of this work objectively and I hope that you understand me